Season 2 should be renamed Oedipal Empire. I mean, come on, plowing your mother and then, years later, stabbing your father to death. Classic Oedipus Rex. This show is reaching desperately in season 2, because it's just not that good. My wife says each episode feels like its 3 hours long. Even Kelly MacDonald has lost her sparkle. Agent Nelson was so brilliantly bizzare in season 1 only to be relegated to a useless slug in season 2. Overall, Boardwalk Empire is a colossal disappointment.

Great ep - one of the best in the history of drama on TV. Lol in the post above stating "classic Oedipus Rex" as a complaint when Oedipus Rex has never been dramatised on film before to this extent, let alone on mainstream TV. Obviously Dcat has watched a lot of "classic" Greek drama on the stage because you won't find Oedipus Rex elsewhere because its a shocking topic to deal with. Shocking episode with a dream like quality. If Dcat is complaining about a remake, well, basically all good drama has been remade continually on TV anyway.

Thumbs up from me - the high point of this series and one of the high points in TV this year.

Buscemi is awesome. I've bad movies werehis character still worked. Even Escape fromLA, as bad as that movie is( we're all trying to forget about Cleveland ) his character worked b/c of his delivery and talent.

Great ep - one of the best in the history of drama on TV. Lol in the post above stating "classic Oedipus Rex" as a complaint when Oedipus Rex has never been dramatised on film before to this extent, let alone on mainstream TV. Obviously Dcat has watched a lot of "classic" Greek drama on the stage because you won't find Oedipus Rex elsewhere because its a shocking topic to deal with. Shocking episode with a dream like quality. If Dcat is complaining about a remake, well, basically all good drama has been remade continually on TV anyway.

Thumbs up from me - the high point of this series and one of the high points in TV this year.

disagree. Plot is contrived now. The incest and patricide segments are for shock value and to camoflage the dead end story lines this season. Season 1 > season 2 by a mile. Love Buscemi. Wish they would give him something other than a script in which he is annoyed and irritated 100% of the time. What a waste of his talent.

Buscemi is awesome. I've bad movies werehis character still worked. Even Escape fromLA, as bad as that movie is( we're all trying to forget about Cleveland ) his character worked b/c of his delivery and talent.

Any movie with Peter Fonda, Steve Buscemi and Snake Pliskin in alright with me! The surfing scene has to be one of the corniest ever.

What a great season finale! Should have seen it coming, but I didn't. And it all makes sense. After the evils committed by JD, including incest and patricide, it makes perfect sense.

Without Michael Pitt, Dabney Coleman, Aleska Palladino (Angela), they'll be needing to add a lot of new characters next season. They gave room for the return of Michael Shannon (Agent Nelson VanAlden) to return. Good. I hope they bring him back. He is a terrifically odd character and one of the more interesting ones on BE. I also hope they find some way of bringing back Jack Huston (Richard Harrow), who has been sensational. It truly has been a show with a stronger supporting cast than the main characters sometimes, including Buscemi (but not by any fault of Buscemi). Maybe the surprising finale can put some life into the Nucky character, who this season was relegated to constant cynicism and the one-note song of always being annoyed by everyone around him, which got very old and boring very quickly. The limitations they put on Buscemi for this character have been a crime. Buscemi is so good and creative in interpretation of odd characters throughout his career, but not so much on BE. He was totally one-dimensional for all of season 2. That is until the last scenes of the season finale.

What a great season finale! Should have seen it coming, but I didn't. And it all makes sense. After the evils committed by JD, including incest and patricide, it makes perfect sense.

Without Michael Pitt, Dabney Coleman, Aleska Palladino (Angela), they'll be needing to add a lot of new characters next season. They gave room for the return of Michael Shannon (Agent Nelson VanAlden) to return. Good. I hope they bring him back. He is a terrifically odd character and one of the more interesting ones on BE. I also hope they find some way of bringing back Jack Huston (Richard Harrow), who has been sensational. It truly has been a show with a stronger supporting cast than the main characters sometimes, including Buscemi (but not by any fault of Buscemi). Maybe the surprising finale can put some life into the Nucky character, who this season was relegated to constant cynicism and the one-note song of always being annoyed by everyone around him, which got very old and boring very quickly. The limitations they put on Buscemi for this character have been a crime. Buscemi is so good and creative in interpretation of odd characters throughout his career, but not so much on BE. He was totally one-dimensional for all of season 2. That is until the last scenes of the season finale.

Pretty good interview about the finale at EW (Spoiler ridden of course)

should have seen the demise of Jimmy coming when they show his son was wearing his dog tags. And when he had Richard not join him on his "visit" to Manny. He had all the trappings of a suicidal man in that last episode. Gotta say that Michael Pitt did an excellent job with that role and was perhaps the show's most riveting character. Wonder how well the show will survive wiothout him. He actually had more screen time in the 2 years than anyone else in the cast, including Buscemi.

As for Van Alden, you knew that his drowning of his Jewish partner in season 1 was going to come back to haunt him. And I'll bet he's back in the loop next season because he winds up in Cicero, Illinois in the final episode, on the run, and Cicero is the town in Illinois that Al Capone ultimately settles in to after leaving Chicago in the early 1920's. After moving there, Capone corrupts the Cicero electoral process and gains great power. I can easily see Van Alden having a role in that with Capone (played exceptionally well by Stephen Graham). The portrayal of Capone is yet another example of how the supporting cast in BE is exceptional.

Edit: and from the linked article by BayRidgeJet above is this:

With Van Alden having run off to Cicero, is he going to still be in our story?
Yeah. People who are really students of Mob history will pick up on the fact that Cicero, Ill., is the place Al Capone became headquartered in 1924. So we put him in a place where he theoretically could interact with other characters on the show.

So can we expect to see Al Capone come into his own as a formidable force next season?
As time goes on. The plan is now is we would come back in season 3 a little further into the future and start to really track Al Capone’s rise and — God willing — through the course of the series. By 1925, Capone was the guy everybody recognizes — the guy in the white fedora who’s firmly in charge of Chicago. Hopefully we’ll be on the air long enough to see that guy. Certainly in [season 3] we’ll start to see Capone on pretty much equal footing as Johnny Torrio in terms of who’s running the town.

and this regarding the Harrow character

And I’m assuming Richard Harrow will continue as a key player?
Yes, Harrow will continue to be part of the show, absolutely.

Good strategy: Keep the super strong supporting cast and the show will continue to do well, despite the creative restrictions placed on Buscemi.

Have always loved Steve Buscemi. My prediction is that Nucky and Capone blow away Gyp and the NY Italian godfather. Watching the previews it looks like Nucky's wife gets blown away too. Probably because Nucky is pissed that she got knocked up by his late bodyguard.